even to their caprices I have
never been disposed to oppress them for my pleasure. I conceived great
designs; but fate 'has been against me; I am no longer a conqueror, nor
can I be one. I know what is possible and what is not.--I have no
further object than to raise up France and bestow on her a government
suitable to her. I have no hatred to liberty, I have set it aside when
it obstructed my path, but I understand what it means; I was brought up
in its school: besides, the work of fifteen years is overturned, and it
is not possible to recommence it. It would take twenty years, and the
lives of 2,000,000 of men to be sacrificed to it. As for the rest, I
desire peace, but I can only obtain it by means of victory. I would not
inspire you with false expectations. I permit it to be said that
negotiations are going on; there are none. I foresee a hard struggle,
a long war. To support it I must be seconded by the nation, but in
return I believe they will expect liberty. They shall have it: the
circumstances are new. All I desire is to be informed of the truth.
I am getting old. A man is no longer at forty-five what he was at
thirty. The repose enjoyed by a constitutional king may suit me: it will
still more certainly be the best thing, for my son."

From this remarkable address. Benjamin Constant concluded that no
change had taken place in Bonaparte's views or feelings in matters of
government, but, being convinced that circumstances had changed, he had
made up his mind to conform to them. He says, and we cannot doubt it,
"that he listened to Napoleon with the deepest interest, that there was a
breadth and grandeur of manner as he spoke, and a calm serenity seated on
a brow covered with immortal laurels."

Whilst believing the utter incompatibility of Napoleon and constitutional
government we cannot in fairness omit mentioning that the causes which
repelled him from the altar and sanctuary of freedom were strong: the
real lovers of a rational and feasible liberty--the constitutional
monarchy men were few--the mad ultra-Liberals, the Jacobins, the refuse
of one revolution and the provokers of another, were numerous, active,
loud, and in pursuing different ends these two parties, the respectable
and the disreputable, the good and the bad, got mixed and confused with
one another.

On the 14th of May, when the 'federes' were marshalled in processional
order and treated with what was called a solemn festival, as they moved
al